At Play in the Fields of Mr. Ranger Man

This has been the summer of travel - not too far or too fast or terribly exotic, unless you count the dinosaur bones at the mall restaurant in Kansas, but it has been rare and wonderful savoring so much of the season in the company of the girls. I'd like to post some photos of our travels, from the famous fat duck of Lake of the Ozarks to the fireside at Jellystone Park at the reunion of the "China Sisters," the girls who came home from Laibin Xingbin Social Welfare Institute in the group with Jiejie, but the photo link from the sometimes aptly named Picasa seems troubled right now until it receives more money to buy more space. It matters not that the photos are in the computer.

Oh, and the very amateurish slide show at the bottom of the page, created a couple of years ago, before Meimei, seems to be turned on its side. Wordpress this is not.

Stay tuned for the China Sisters slideshow. Maybe.

Talking in Her Sleep

Jiejie screamed out in her sleep the other night, rather angrily: "Brown head!"
It took a while to figure out that she was talking about Meimei, whose hair is definitely a toastier hue than Jiejie's inky curtain of hair.
Now Meimei has a new nickname, but finds it hard to believe her hair and eyes are not black like her big sister's.
And as long as Jiejie continues to talk in her sleep every time you poke her with a fingertip or kiss her on top of her head, we might have a clue to what's going on in there.

The Loney Ranger

Meimei has coined a versatile word: "loney."
When she wants to be alone, she says, "I is loney."
When she wants someone to join her, she says, "I is loney."
And when I went back to work today after being with the girls almost nonstop for a long vacation/furlough combination, Meimei was loney again.

Jiejie was just grumpy, but on Sunday night she had the perfect solution. When she grows up, she will work next to me, and do the same job I do. I suggested she might want to be a ballerina or a brain surgeon or perhaps do something more interesting (and lucrative, and secure) than editing, given the endless possibilities available to her, but she was resolute.

"Do you think after a while I could ask for a desk right next to yours?"

"Of course, " I told her. "Why do you want us to have the same career?"

Jiejie said, "It's so nice when you bring home new books. New books are a good thing, right?'

I couldn't disagree with that.

On the Road

Analyze This

Tonight in the dark Meimei whispered in my ear, "I love hot dogs and I love you."

Very Local Briefs

Daddy has been working late these days, and half the night after he gets home, which means I get the girls to myself a bit more. Tonight I played with Meimei, who wanted to turn somersaults on a pillow while Jiejie read an Olivia book. Then we played limbo with a tape measure, and used it to reel each other in. We ripped brown paper off a table that had been in storage but kept it for another use "so we can save the earth," Jiejie said. We took Meimei to the potty about 23 times. (She's a natural.) Then we played "new babysitter," Jiejie's idea. She was Sydney, the new babysitter, and Meimei was her charge. "What will you do with my daughter today, Sydney?" I asked her. "Oh, whatever she wants," Sydney assured me. "I always do whatever the kid wants. All day." She nodded knowingly. And what will you feed her? "Bananas and apples. They have fiber."
Oh, and protein. "Some... chicken?" she said in a questioning tone. And vegetables? "I think carrots." We're going to have to try that microgreen salad again ... Even having Jiejie's lettuce patch out back is not enough to persuade them to do more than dip something green into ranch dressing and lick the dressing off.

* * *

What does it mean that I keep stumbling over photos of orphans on the Internet and seeing posts about older kids who need homes desperately, kids in China who will be on their own at age 14 if they have not been adopted, kids who are never even on any agency's list for adoption because they are cursed not only with having attained the advanced age of 12 but also were born blind?

It means, I guess, that I hug my kids closer and wonder about carving out that extra bedroom.

Fretwork

Jiejie has been very whiny since school let out a week ago. She wants to sit on my lap constantly and be my baby, which is fine. I love to baby her. But the baby behavior has extended to refusing to take her vitamins and allergy medicine. Jiejie has even been whining in her sleep. Well, one night, anyway. She wanted a round bandaid and we had no round bandaids in our huge assortment. Could she seriously have been whimpering about a bandaid in her sleep? It was the first thing she asked for in the morning. Should she have more perspective at age 6? I don't think I did. Magnitude was directly related to how badly I wanted something. I guess she is a lot like me. Too much like me, perhaps. But I have grown out of my willfulness. I am no match for her. But what do you do when a child her age refuses to do something? I won't physically force her. What is a disciplinary measure appropriate to the infraction? One that would be instructive and constructive?
These are the little worries that have been nagging at me this week as I wondered if Jiejie was just tired, if her allergies were making her grumpy, if a few days of missing her Omega 3s had had a behavioral effect, if it was simply a case of missing the routine of full-day Kindergarten, or if she was mourning her birth parents or having some kind of attachment crisis or appendicitis or swine flu or west nile virus or ...